The present invention relates to a linear positioning system for positioning materials to be machined, and more specifically to a positioning system using pneumatic control devices.
With increasing labor costs in all areas of manufacturing, continuing development of machinery to replace skilled labor has been diligently pursued in most areas of manufacturing. Many examples are evident today of automated machines that replace hand-skilled labor and perform manufacturing functions in a more-precise, dependable, and cost-efficient manner. These machines have provided new standards of quality in the manufacture of materials and have made a wider variety of finished products available to the public due to the decreased cost of manufacture.
In many manufacturing applications, sheets or bulk forms of raw materials are automatically positioned about a material machining apparatus which subsequently acts upon the raw material in a way to produce a finished product. The automatic positioning of a raw product about a machining apparatus often allows for a reduction in the labor and time required to produce individual pieces in that the raw material is processed into a finished product while still in one large piece. As such, automatic material positioning systems have seen many applications in manufacturing processes that require machining or tooling of large pieces of material. Very accurate, and often very expensive, automatic material positioning systems have been produced, enabling the use of large volume manufacturing techniques for the production of precision products.
One area of manufacturing that has received comparatively little attention until the last few years, in terms of the application of automatic precision material positioners, is that of the woodworking art. As a consequence, aside from the development of various manually-operated tools, comparatively little effort has been expended to develop and perfect woodworking machinery which automatically performs woodworking functions. Further, as the need for more precise and well-finished wood products has increased, the need for machinery to automatically perform precision woodworking functions at lower costs of manufacture has also increased. Some representative examples of present automated woodworking machinery are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,662,798, 3,734,153 and 4,112,986 which depict automated machinery utilized for performing cutting operations on sheets of wood.
Along with the above representative inventions relating to automatic woodworking machinery, there exists a variety of precision material positioning and machining systems capable of being adapted to the woodworking industry. These systems, however, tend to be very large and complicated in nature, and are frequently cost-prohibitive for a smaller manufacturing operations. Elaborate means are often employed to accomplish the desired precision of material finishing that is required over a large piece of woodworking material. These means frequently include massive material supporting tables made of cast iron or steel that are manufactured to very precise mechanical tolerances to insure that the desired machining accuracy is obtained over the length of the material. The positioning of the raw material about a machining apparatus is usually accomplished via complicated electromechanical, pneumatic, or hydraulic means requiring elaborate feedback mechanisms to insure precise material positioning. In many automated woodworking machines, multiple machining devices are precisely moved about a woodworking material, and the number of locations at which repetitive machine functions may be performed can be limited by the number of the machining devices As such, the present automated woodworking machinery is often limited by its large bulky size, complicated nature, high cost, and inherent inefficiency when used in small, less capital-intensive environments.
Therefore, there exists a need for a precision linear positioning system that is capable of precisely positioning raw woodworking material about a machining device.
There also exists a need for a precision linear positioning system that utilizes an efficient design of construction so that the linear positioning system need not be excessively massive or bulky in nature to achieve very precise positioning of the woodworking material throughout its entire length and width.
There exists a further need for a precision linear positioning system that is capable of being programmed over a range of functions and requires only simple operator adjustments or settings to facilitate changes in set-up and that can operate throughout an automated material machining process without operator intervention.
There exists a further need for a precision linear positioning system that is capable of being operated in a cost-efficient manner so that precisely-finished pieces of woodworking material may be manufactured rapidly and with little skilled labor involvement.
There exists still a further need for a precision linear positioning system that is relatively inexpensive and that can be efficiently utilized in smaller manufacturing operations or affordably dedicated to a single function in larger factories.